Discover Bendigo

Early in the 20th century, one of the many children enrolled at the Bendigo North State School was a certain lass called Laura Buchanan. According to the records, Laura May Buchanan was born at Eaglehawk on May 25, 1907; so, we can safely say that she started school in the following decade. ..

Buoyed by the response from many of our readers regarding parents and their occupations, I will further explore this line of introducing some of the inhabitants of Irishtown/North Bendigo. The parents referred to are those who had enrolled their children at the North Bendigo State School, as it w..

In some respects it is easy to come to the conclusion that North Bendigo/Irishtown, was not only the poorest area of Bendigo in the 19th and early 20th century, but it was otherwise a microcosm of the diversity of our overall community. I have used the North Sandhurst (North Bendigo) State School ..

It is remarkable how one event can have two different aspects, and that, when it comes to being investigated the two do not come together until the answers have been found. I have already given an account of the investigations into the break-in at the North Sandhurst State School and also regardin..

In late August, 1890, three children all from the one family appeared in the Police Court here in Bendigo, having been charged with house breaking into the North Sandhurst State School, stealing property and setting the school building on fire. It was the two girls, the eldest Catherine and her s..

The North Sandhurst State School was not the only local school to have suffered from having its buildings partially or completely destroyed by fire. A year earlier in 1899 the Specimen Hill State School was burnt, it had been determined the cause of that fire was as a result of a burning log havi..

I realise that the title for this portion of the story dealing with the fire at the North Sandhurst State School, Irishtown in mid-July 1890 is not very original. However, the result of the fire at the school which partially destroyed the weatherboard building, was to become the source of much sp..

Bendigo still had the name Sandhurst in 1890 yet debate raged in the community on the benefits of each of the respective names. There were those who had been born here from the mid 1850s onwards that felt quite at home with the name Sandhurst, the name they had grown up with. Then there were o..

There were three industrial structures that dominated Irishtown, lar- gely because they were physically so prominent, on this relatively flat area which had been denuded of trees in the early 1850s. Towering above the tents, huts, simple slab structures and small weatherboard cottages was the Be..

Elizabeth Woods was one of many students attending the North Sandhurst State School; during the year 1887 she had produced a work book which was destined to be put on show. Her work covered the subjects in the curriculum of the time, some of which are more recognisable than others compared to wha..

John Burston as head teacher of the North Sandhurst State School, was, as mentioned last week, to have a profound and lasting influence on the scholastic life of student Elizabeth Woods. Elizabeth’s father, William Woods, was at first a carter before he found employment in the mining indust..

Thomas Reid and his wife were able to remain as head teacher and assistant at the newly created State School 325 Irishtown, having previously occupied the same position at the St John’s School in Lucan Street. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, number 325 became number 1267 and t..

I find it amazing that in Australia we have so many descriptive names, both polite and less so, for what we now regularly refer to as the toilet. Reflecting back to Victorian times there were numerous appellations for the place that everyone had to use at various times throughout the ..

A tender was let for the new State School to be built, numbered by the Education Department as 325 Irishtown. However this number and the name Irishtown was soon to be dropped from the title of the new building that was constructed on a rough sloping elevated block on the apex of the hill, corner..

Even though the Education Act had come into force in the colony of Victoria in 1873, it required a massive amount of organisation for the new Education Department to arrange schooling for the children of the state. The initial option which had been largely adopted by many of t..

As I have previously mentioned, Irishtown had two denominational schools, one operated by the Church of England, while the other was run by the Wesleyans. St John’s was the first school for Irishtown children. Initially the St John’s building was a rude timber structure which wa..

John Bakewell, the man who owned a store in Irishtown as well as being the water rates collector of the Bendigo Water Works Company, had the good fortune to possess a large garden of vegetables, fruit trees, ornamental shrubs and plants. I have previously mentioned the..

Late in 1864 the manager of the Bendigo Waterworks Company, Mr A. Sprigg made a complaint to the Sandhurst Borough Council regarding the water pipes being undermined in Irishtown. According to Sprigg, Sullivan and party were, through their alluvial mining operations, responsible for the undermini..

IN July I wrote about two of Irishtown’s schools, the new Wesleyan School that was being constructed of brick and the neighbouring established weatherboard school St John’s, under the auspices of the Church of England. Both these schools were partially funded through the colonial gove..

When I first started writing about Bendigo’s Irishtown, I traced the boundaries of what was accepted as the area belonging to this portion of our city. However, during my research I was surprised to find that one particular enterprise defined itself as being in Irishtown, the North Bendigo ..